Chipotle chicken skewers with spring couscous salad

This was a really tasty (and quick and easy) chicken dish.  I loved the veges in the couscous salad too - still a little bit crunchy, which is perfect (I like my veges a little less- then more-cooked).  The Culley's Chipotle Sauce which I used was medium-spicy - kind of like a mixture of BBQ sauce and tobasco.  Really yum!!  But if you prefer your dishes to be a little less spicy then sub the chipotle sauce for a smokey BBQ sauce (Whitlocks is a good one), maybe with a little paprika powder mixed in.  

300 g chicken (thigh or breast) 

1-2 tbsp chipotle sauce

1/4 tsp salt

6 bamboo skewers (optional - you could just panfry the bite-sized chunks of marinated chicken without kebabing them) 

1 zucchini, quartered, chopped into 1 cm pieces 

6 spears asparagus, woody ends removed and cut into 2 cm morsels 

8 cherry tomatoes, quartered

1/2 cup stock (I used chicken) 

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup couscous

1/2 lemon, juice and zest

2 tbsp fresh herbs (I used basil, mint and parsley), chopped up

50 g feta cheese

75 g natural unsweetened yoghurt

1-2 tsp chipotle sauce

1. Soak skewers in water for 10 minutes, if using them.  
2. Cut chicken into bite-sized chunks and marinate in chipotle and salt.  Thread onto skewers (or just leave in marinade bowl, if not skewering).  Cover and place in the fridge until you need it.  
3. Put zucchini and asparagus in a large bowl.  Cover with boiling water and leave for a few minutes to cook.  I drained the water after about 5 minutes and poured over a fresh lot - they're done when the asparagus is bright green and the veges tender, but firm.  
4. Bring stock and salt to the boil.  Remove from heat, stir in couscous and cover.  Leave covered for 5 minutes, to allow the couscous to cook.  
5. Heat frypan to cook chicken.  Cook until cooked through (no surprises there!) and starting to brown/blacken on the outside.  
6. Mix couscous with the drained greens, add in lemon juice and zest, herbs, tomatoes and feta. 
7. Serve with chipotle yoghurt, if desired.   

Tori katsu burgers

 I've come across chicken katsu before - in recipes and in Japanese restaurants.  I always thought it was a special way of cooking/crumbing the chicken.  So yesterday, trawling through some recipe sites (looking for some mid-week inspiration!), I came across chicken katsu burgers and I thought - "YES!  That will do admirably!".  And so I discovered that katsu is both the crumbed chicken (torikatsu) AND the sauce served with the chicken (tonkatsu sauce).  Ah ha!!  

So, it's basically a BBQ-style tomato-based sauce.  It was really easy to make and keeps well in the fridge for some time.  The batch I made was enough for drizzling over 5 torikatsu burgers, with enough leftover for probably another 5 burgers.  We reckon this sauce would also be fantastic with roasted pork, or even good ol' steak and chips.  Maybe with salmon?  Give it a try and see what you think...

1/2 cup tomato sauce

1/4 cup water

2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

1 tbsp soy sauce

1 tbsp rice wine vinegar

1 tsp sugar

1 tbsp finely grated ginger (I used a microplane for this and the garlic)

2 cloves garlic, crushed or finely grated

1/4 tsp ground allspice (I was out of this so used mixed spice)

1. Mix all ingredients together in a small saucepan.  Stir over low-medium heat for about 10 minutes, until thickening.  Set aside until you need it (can be used cold or heated back through).   

For the burgers themselves I used mezzo breads from Volare (local specialty baker), but whatever burger buns you fancy will do (the photo with the black brioches was from Nadia Lim's MyFoodBag - I forgot to take a decent photo of our burgers before we got hungry and ate them!!).  I liked the fact that the mezzo were light and quite slim.  A bulky bun with crumbed anything can be a bit too much sometimes.  But up to you.  And toasted buns - yes please for me, but again - up to the individual.  

The tori katsu - I cut into 2cm chunks and marinated 500 g of boneless, skinless chicken thighs (trimmed of fat and chewy sinewy bits).  The marinade was just a couple of tbsp each of soy sauce and rice wine vinegar, with a couple tbsp grated fresh ginger.  When ready to cook, shake piece of chicken off, dredge in flour, then egg, then panko crumbs, and cook in pan of hot melted butter.  

Build your burgers by smearing some good thick mayo on one half of the bun, pile with coleslaw (ours had grated carrot, red cabbage, beetroot, chopped spinach, spring onions and red onion) and tori katsu, then drizzle with the katsu sauce and top with remaining half of bun.  Yum!!  Sounds labour intensive, but it really wasn't - get the sauce done earlier, and you can even buy some coleslaw from the deli, if time is short.  

Next level burgers

Burgers are awesome.  I'm a big fan, especially of a good ol' homemade hamburger with beetroot, cheese and BBQ sauce.  Or a crumbed fish burger, yum!  There are 4 things that make, or break, a burger - tasty homemade patties (or fish, chicken, falafel) - plenty of herbs/spices, yum; good buns; fresh salad; and the sauce.  Oh, the sauce.  It's key.  

Chelsea Winter has just released her latest cookbook - Eat.  It has a recipe for Crunchy Buffalo Chicken Burgers with a Blue Cheese Sauce, which I am keen as to make.  They sound amazing!  In the meantime however, I thought I'd share a couple of her other burger sauces which will just take your burger experience to the next level of amazingness!  

Secret sauce for best-ever cheeseburger

3/4 cup mayo (Best Foods or Pams American are good)

2 tbsp onion, finely chopped

3 gherkins, finely chopped

1 clove garlic, crushed

1 1/2 tbsp Dijon mustard

1 tbsp tomato paste

salt and pepper, to taste

Avocado-basil mayo, for sublime chicken burgers (ooh, with bacon!)

1/2 cup mayo (as above)

1 ripe avocado, mashed

2 handfuls fresh basil leaves, torn up

squeeze of lemon juice

salt and pepper, to taste 

Kung Pao Part Deux

Ok, so further to the kung pao of a couple week's back - we made it again but this time using smoked paprika in place of the cayenne pepper.  Boom, still amazing, but without the insane amount of spicy heat.  So there we go peeps - cayenne if you like it hot, paprika if you like it not.  Chī hǎo hē hǎo!

Hulk smash! peas and broc

This is a sort of retake on the whole mushy peas arena.  It went with a recent Nadia Lim fish and chip meal, but I've added a couple of extra veges (might as well use up what is in the fridge!).  

This is enough for 2-3 people:

6 florets broccoli and 4 florets cauliflower (or just broccoli), roughly chopped up (stalk and all)
1/2 cup frozen peas 
2-3 cloves garlic, chopped
good handful fresh mint, chopped up
1/2 cup water
2 tbsp butter
salt, herbs and spices of choice (I used salt, pepper and tarragon)

1. Put all ingredients (except butter) in pot.  Put the lid on and steam for a few minutes until just cooked. 
2. Drain excess water. 
3. Add butter and salt/herbs and roughly mash.  Hulk smash!!  

believe it or not - you're gonna love brussells

Brussell sprouts don't have the greatest rep.  I imagine if a poll were taken of vegetable-eating adults, probably 7-8/10 would say they don't like BS.  Why?  Because they're tasteless or, even worse, they taste the smell of boiled socks.  BS have always been boiled, within an inch of their lives.  So the result, not surprisingly, is a vegetable gone limp, devoid of flavour, and therefore not a welcome addition to any meal plan.  

However, I am one of the 2-3/10 who genuinely do enjoy BS.  Always have.  We didn't have them much as kids, as our parents hated them, but when we had them I loved them.  And now they are, dare I say it, enjoying something of a renaissance.  The age of the Brussell.  Any why is that?  Because we are slowly realising that, as with most foods, they can be cooked in more than one way (and, in fact, are absolutely fantastic raw - see Winter Slaw 2.0).  

Last night we had steak.  What do we have with it, we wondered.  Eventually (imagination was ebbing by evening) I settled on mushroom sauce and some form of potato (oh, well done me).  Fortunately KB had a little more imagination left and came up with this really really tasty twist on a good ol' roast vege salad - and it used brussells!  

1-2 beetroot

1 kumara (we used orange)

1/2 large red onion

6 brussell sprouts

half or more red capsicum

mint

thyme

sour cream

hoisin sauce

1. Chop beetroot and kumara in large bite-sized chunks, and onion in wedges - roast until cooked through.  Bring out and set aside to cool. 
2. Finely slice brussells; dice capsicum, finely chop herbs.  
3. Mix sour cream and hoisin (sorry, wasn't watching so not sure of exact amounts, but am thinking 125ml tub of SC and a tbsp or so of hoisin).  
4. Fold all together and serve as a cold salad.  

Schnitzel von Parmasan Crumb

Schnitzel - it's one of those meats which I sometimes just forget about.  You buy some, it sits in the freezer for ages, maybe ends up sliced up for a stir-fry.  But crumbed schnitzel is one of my favourite ways to have meat, it's awesome.  Don't know why we don't have it more often!  

This is crumbed schnitzel taken to the next level - with parmasan and herbs.  Yum!!  This crumb is also perfect for slices of chicken (homemade chicken tenders, anyone?).  

Flour

Herbs (I used Simon Gault's Italian seasoning)

Egg

Panko crumbs

Parmasan cheese

Beef schnitzel (or chicken, pork...) 

Potatoes (for mash or chips)

Veges or slaw

1. Mix a little salt and herbs with your flour.  
2. Finely grate parmasan onto your panko crumbs and mix together.  
3. Whisk an egg (or two, depending on how much schnitzel you're crumbing) in a bowl.  
4. Cut schnitzel into manageable-sized pieces (strips is great for kids, or palm-sized is good) and coat in herby flour.  Next dredge through egg.  Finally coat with panko-parmasan crumb.  
5. Cook in hot pan with oil or butter.  
6. Serve with oven chips (kumara maybe?) or mash and steamed veges or slaw.  Enjoy!!